Don't Close Your Eyes
by Storychan
Summary: What happens when the sleepiest kid at Camp Half Blood finally wakes up? Something magical! The romance between Clovis, Head of Hypnos Cabin, and Hecate Cabin Head Counselor Lou Ellen, mentioned in 'The Lost Hero' very briefly. Her traits   pure fanon.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Minor Emergency

Nobody cares about me….I know that sounds angsty and that every teenage girl says that, but in my case, it's really kind of true. I am Lou Ellen, and I'm the daughter of Hecate, Goddess of Witchcraft and the Phases of the Moon and a bunch of other things I can't seem to remember. Some people say Mom is some kind of schizophrenic goddess who's multiple personalities include Artemis (who has a cabin here at Camp Half-Blood, but no kids) and Persephone (you know, the Queen of the entire freakin' Underworld who Hades married….or kidnapped…to the Ancient Greeks, it seems like kind of the same thing…yikes). You'd think being all those different, important people at the same time would make my Mom important.

Not so much, really. Mom's a minor goddess. Maybe it was the fact that she had to worshipped at crossroads that stopped Mom from catching on with the Ancient Greeks. I mean, if I were a goddess, I'd ask to be worshipped at, I don't know, McDonalds or something. Everybody goes to McDonald's, so it'd be super-easy to just drop in a little sacrifice while you were waiting for your Happy Meal. Walking all the way out to a crossroads just isn't as snappy.

Or maybe it's that Mom preferred sacrifices of goats and pigeons. Most gods back in the day ordered up sheep or pigs from 1-800-Worship-Me-Or-Be-Smited. Mom was like that girl at your school who eats really weird stuff, like hummus-flavored soy burgers or vegan carob bars. Maybe that's why she was never really popular.

A couple months ago, though, it got worse. Mom helped a titan named Kronos and a bunch of other demigods like me destroy Mt. Olympus, which is currently on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building. A son of Poseidon-he's the sea god, and he's a lot more popular than Mom-named Percy Jackson stopped her. Percy's pretty nice….he's the one who decided Mom and a bunch of other minor gods should get their own cabins.

That's how I became head counselor of the Hecate cabin. Percy disappeared shortly after that, though-bummer. Then this other guy, Jason Grace, showed up. I only saw him once, when all the counselors met at the Big House. I guess I should've paid more attention to him, because he turned out to be pretty important. At the time, I was playing "got your nose" with another counselor…but with a twist. I actually magically removed her nose from her face! I love magical jokes like that. Anyway, Chiron made me put the nose back and Jason and his two friends, Piper and Leo, went on a quest and kind of saved the world.

Then, we found out Jason's a Roman. Big surprise! I don't mind though…the Romans gave Mom a cool name. "Trivia". Today that's a game…you know, 'Trivial Pursuit?' I love that game. Mom's Roman name makes her sound smart, like she knows a million secret random facts that nobody else does.

I like the thought of having sort-of cousins from Mom's Roman side. A lot of demigods here at Camp Half-Blood, though, don't like their godly parents' Roman aspects. I was using magic to spy on that Jason kid when he first got here (magic's good for reconnaissance! And hey- a lot of kids thought Jason might be up to something at first) when I overheard him talking to Clovis, the head counselor of the Hypnos cabin (Hypnos is a minor god, too-the God of Sleep). I would have canceled the spell so not to pry into their conversation, but this was a momentous occasion.

Clovis is cool and cute and all, but he's…..narcoleptic. I've always wanted to talk to him, since he's another minor god cabin counselor, but he's never been awake long enough. This kid falls asleep at the drop of a hat, so nobody I know has really ever been able to hold a conversation with him.

I don't really even look at Clovis that much, to be honest. He's cute when he's sleeping, but he's sleeping all the time. Every time I see him, he's sleeping. Watching him sleep makes me feel like a perv, so I generally avoid him.

But the fact that this Jason kid who nobody knew much about (and Percy's girlfriend, Annabeth) had gotten Clovis to completely wake up and have a big discussion was too interesting to turn away from. So I looked. I learned that Clovis is a little bit freaked out by his Dad's Roman side, Somnus. Somnus kills people who sleep on the job.

Clovis not only sleeps on the job, he sleeps on the dinner table, on the campfire, on the middle of the volleyball court….well, you get the idea. If Clovis was Somnus' kid instead of Hypnos', he'd probably be dead by now.

Morpheus, the God of Dreams, helped put everybody in the Manhattan area to sleep a few months back so Kronos could end the world and stuff. Morpheus is the son of Hypnos, so I guess you could say he's Clovis' half-brother.

I think it would be cool to have a god for a half-sibling, personally. But some of the kids at camp have been talking bad about Clovis about it, like he thought Morpheus had the right idea or something.

People talk bad about me, too, because my mom tried to destroy Olympus. I get why she did it….before a few months ago, Mom didn't even have her own cabin. She and Morpheus and a bunch of other minor gods got basically no respect. By extension, I didn't either, but see, I don't care what other people think of me. Mom does care, though, and that's why she joined Kronos. I don't think some of the demigods here are ever going to forgive her for it.

I don't blame them….Mom's the reason some of them are dead. They were on Olympus with Percy when she started hexing it. Mom was just another minor goddess who helped Kronos cause damage to at least half the campers here, or their parents. We're at peace now, but people still talk.

I feel bad for Clovis, though. I always know when people are talking about me. Clovis is always asleep when the other kids start bashing him. I don't think he has a clue.

I really wish he'd wake up one of these days and hear what people say about him. He's a lot cooler than people give him credit for.

Or, at least, that's what I was thinking about when the forest caught fire. It was midnight and Chiron had asked me to keep watch over the camp borders that night. He's been a little paranoid ever since we found out Gaea's back. She's Mother Earth, by the way….and I think she wants to end the world or something.

I was happy to keep watch, though. It was a full moon, the kind of night where I feel like I can sense my Mom's presence. According to the myths, as the moon fades away, so does she. Her power is at its peak when the moon is super-bright. I like looking at the moon at night. It makes me feel closer to my mom, like she's watching over me. I like the night, and the camp border is a good place for moon-viewing.

I didn't really get to watch the moon, though, because one of Hephaestus cabin's automatons got lose and self-destructed. It made a pretty big explosion and a fire started. It wasn't a big fire, though, so I figured I could just run over to the Big House and get a few pails of water to put it out.

I was at the Big House, filling up a bucket, when I saw him. Clovis. He was sleep-walking.

I've heard that waking up a sleepwalker can be dangerous, so I just kept filling my buckets. I looked at him though….his eyes were glazed over, but I noticed they were really….bright.

Like moonlight.

I told myself to stop staring at him and turned off the faucet. My buckets were full.

As I raced back towards the forest with my buckets, I realized something. Clovis was following me.

I kept running towards the camp border. Firefighting was more important than a sleep-stalker, I told myself. I couldn't let the fire spread.

I threw the first bucket on the fire when I saw him.

Clovis was about to sleepwalk right into the fire!

"Hey!" I screamed, but he didn't hear me. Gods, Clovis was a heavy sleeper. I grabbed him by the arm.

"Clovis, wake up!" I screamed. "You're going to burn yourself!"

Clovis pulled away from me and I screamed when I saw his hair was on fire.

I tore off my favorite black scarf and patted his hair, smothering the flames.

"See, you idiot?" I grumbled when I saw that he was OK. "Bad things happen when you sleep all the time! If I wasn't here, you would have burned to a crisp."

"Then I'm glad you saved me!" Clovis replied, tossing a bucket of water on the rest of the flames.

I jumped. I hadn't realized he'd woken up.

"Sorry if I scared you," Clovis smiled serenely. "It looks like the fire's all put out now. It wasn't really a big one."

"Umm, yeah, thanks," I mumbled. Then, I realized my hand was still on his hair and I blushed. I pulled my hand away faster than the fire had started.

I was so embarrassed that I almost didn't hear what Clovis said next:

"Sleeping all the time isn't all that bad, Lou Ellen. If I hadn't been sleepwalking tonight, I would never have seen how beautiful you look in the moonlight."


	2. Chapter 2

Don't Close Your Eyes, Chapter 2: Sleepless Night

**Disclaimer: I do not own Clovis, Lou Ellen, Camp Half-Blood, or any other part of the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" universe. They're Rick Riordan's.**

**I have created a personality and history for Lou Ellen for the purposes of this fic because her canon self has not been explored in the books. It is pure conjecture, I have no clue what Mr. Riordan has planned for her. She hasn't even gotten a single speaking line in the books, so her entire self in this fic besides her name, godly parent, and status as head counselor-and the fact that she magically "got" another counselor's nose- is 100% pure fanon by me. **

**Haley belongs to Shizuka Nezumi. Oh, and I'm not making even one drachma off this. **

**Enjoy **

_**Lou Ellen**_

_Did Clovis just call me beautiful? _I wondered. _Umm, OK, that's it. He's been __**sleeping**__ so long he can't even tell the difference between dreams and reality anymore._

_He's dreaming if he thinks a girl with messy hair from fire-fighting who smells like burnt pine is 'beautiful'._

…_Is he trying to flatter me? No..no!_

_Hold up, Lou Ellen, _I told myself. _ Why in Hades would he want to flatter you? Clovis doesn't like me or anything….does he? _

_No way, _I sighed. "Clovis," I told him. "S-stop messing around and go back to your cabin before you fall…."

I looked down to see Clovis was passed out on the damp ground in front of me, snoring so much like a chainsaw that he was probably freaking out the nearby pine dryads.

"..Asleep," I finished, laughing to myself. I should've known better! Clovis was never awake long enough to hold a normal conversation.

_Not that this conversation was normal, _I reminded myself. _In normal conversations, people don't call me beautiful._

I shrugged off the thought. Whether or not Clovis liked me wasn't important at the moment. The fact that he was asleep on the dirt and drooling on my shoe was.

"Come here, you big baby," I sighed, grabbing Clovis by the scruff of his neck, hoping I could drag him back to his cabin before he completely saturated my sneakers. I began to drag him across the cold ground.

Not the nicest way to handle it, I know. But Clovis spends most of his time sleeping, not working out. Thus, he was pretty freaking heavy. Dragging him was all I could do.

Clarisse LaRue, daughter of Ares and not my biggest fan, passed by me just as I reached the door to Hypnos Cabin. She called out to me. "Hey, Witch!"

That's what she and some other campers started calling me. 'Witch'. Because my mom's a goddess of witchcraft, get it?

I knocked on the door of the cabin, trying to ignore Clarisse. _Oh, gods, please let somebody answer the door! _I prayed. Unlikely, I realized. It was the middle of the night, and Hypnos' kids didn't even stay awake enough to answer the door during the day.

I was stuck out here, holding onto Clovis, with my worst enemy. _Thanks for nothing, gods! _I sighed internally, hoping I wouldn't be smited for thinking so.

"Witch!" cried Clarisse. "Hey, I'm freakin' talking to you, Witch!"

"Sssh, Clarisse," I said softly. "Don't do this. You'll wake up the whole camp."

"Like I care!" Clarisse cried. "What in Hades are you doin' with Clovis when you're supposed to be helping guard the camp?"

I realized Chiron had probably sent Clarisse to take the next watch. My fault, I realized. I should've been at my post. Gaea could have waltzed right in and smooshed us by now.

But it wasn't my fault Clovis sleepwalked out to the borderline!

_It isn't Clovis' fault, either, _I thought to myself. _All children of Hypnos have weird sleeping habits. I can't blame him for having a sleep god for a father._

Not that I was going to try to convince Clarisse of that. She blames **me** for who **my** mother is all the time.

"Clovis is an idiot," Clarisse smirked. "I guess I should've figured he'd mess up camp security. His half-brother's a traitor, anyway."

"Clovis is no traitor!" I cried. "He's not…I mean, he didn't distract me from keeping watch on purpose. He was sleepwalking."

"How do you know, Witch?" Clarisse snickered. "Oh, right. You traitors all stick together."

"I'm not a traitor either!" I screamed at Clarisse, sick of all the things I'd had to deal with because of what my mother had done. It wasn't even Mom's fault for supporting Kronos, even if I didn't agree with it. If people were as rude to Mom as they are to me, I'd be angry, too. I'd want to smite them. Nevertheless, I'm glad Mom didn't succeed in destroying Olympus. Percy Jackson won, and now things are better for the minor gods and their children. Or at least, they're supposed to be.

"I'm on your side, Clarisse," I said tiredly. "Leave me alone and let me get Clovis back to bed."

"You like Clovis, don't you, Witch?" Clarisse accused.

"That has NOTHING to do with it!" I screamed, my face growing warm despite the chill of the night. "Clovis is a head counselor, and so am I. We've more than proved ourselves. There's no reason for you to talk like this."

"Whatever, Witch," Clarisse mumbled, and stormed off to take the next watch. It took me a minute to realize my yelling fit had scared her. I'm normally so quiet. Stoic, even. I act indifferent to everything so that people don't harass me about my mom's past. I never say boo to anyone so that they won't say anything back. I almost always keep my mouth shut and just clown around or poke my nose in a spellbook. I've never answered Clarisse back for any of her taunts before.

Until tonight, that is. It was one thing when Clarisse was just talking to me. But tonight she picked on me AND Clovis, at the same time…right after Clovis had helped me out with the fire and said something nice to me. Nobody at camp ever says stuff like that to me. Some of them talk to me like Clarisse does, but most of them don't talk to me at all. That's how I like it…shutting my mouth and not talking to anybody in order to avoid conflict.

But I started conflict tonight. I said things to Clarisse I've been wanting to say for a long time, and I scared her. Scared a fearless Daughter of War….the quiet girl in the corner finally snaps. That's me, the quiet one. But I wasn't quiet to Clarisse tonight. And for that, I have Clovis to thank.

_**Clovis**_

_The Next Morning_

Hey. Clovis here. I just woke up in the doorway of Hypnos Cabin, which I'm the head counselor for. I was really disoriented. The last thing I remember was telling Lou Ellen how beautiful she looked in the moonlight last night.

She did, though. Maybe it's because she's Hecate's daughter, but she really just glows. It's really pretty, like a dream. I dream a lot more than I think, because I'm basically asleep all the time.

I'm awake now, though, because a doorway really isn't comfortable enough to sleep on. And because I don't know how I got here.

The door to my cabin opened, and my half-sister Haley Dormer poked out her sleepy head. "C-Clovis?" she yawned. "Everybody else inside is asleep, but Chiron galloped past my window and woke me up. He says cabin inspection is today. Can you make sure the cabin's tidy? I'm going back to sleep."

"Wait, Haley," I told her, realizing she was about to fall asleep again. I was, too, but one thought was kind of keeping me awake. "How did I get out here?"

Haley yawned. "You don't remember?"

"No, I don't. And no going back to sleep 'til you tell me."

"Aw, that's mean, Clovis!" Haley sighed sleepily.

I know how she feels. Normally, I think its mean when people keep me awake, too. I didn't get mad when Lou Ellen woke me up last night, though. I think it's partly because she saved me from burning myself, and partly because she looked so dreamy…literally. Normally, that kind of glowy beauty she had at last night is something I can only see when I dream. It was kind of nice to see something that beautiful while I was awake. But I still needed to know what happened between the time I called Lou Ellen beautiful and when I woke up out here. Not knowing kind of feels like a nightmare. I don't like nightmares…they come from my other half-brother, Phobetor. He's the god of nightmares. He, Morpheus, and another god whose also technically my half-brother, Phantasos, are in charge of dreams. Usually, I only have good dreams because I'm their family. But occasionally Phobetor picks on me and I have a bad dream. I don't like it. And I don't like this big mystery in my memory….last time I was this awake, I was helping _fix_ the memory of a kid named Jason Grace. He turned out to be Roman…nightmarish stuff! I never would have guessed. Rome's scary…over there, my dad's a killer. If you fall asleep on the job, you don't wake up. I don't think my dad's Roman side and I would get along.

But I digress. I have a bad habit of doing that…my thoughts are all over the place, like in a dream. But I needed to focus now, before Haley conked out on me again. She was as sleepy as I usually am.

"How did I get here, Haley?" I repeated, trying to snap her out of the fog we and all Hypnos kids are usually in…not easy.

This time, though, it worked. "Lou Ellen," Haley told me. "She's the one who brought you back..Lou Ellen. I know because I woke up from a really weird dream last night and heard her talking outside the cabin."

"Talking?" I repeated.

"Yeah, talking," Haley said, "to Clarisse."

"Lou Ellen talked to Clarisse?" I said, incredulous. Lou Ellen hardly ever talks to anybody, let alone the meanest girl in camp. "What did she say?" I asked, surprised.

"Something about you not being a traitor," Haley said. "Clarisse called you a traitor."

"And Lou Ellen defended me?" I asked. How odd. Lou Ellen is a really quiet girl, a loner. She doesn't seem to care about anyone or anything, and she chats with other campers almost as little as I do. Why would she suddenly yell at Clarisse in order to defend me? I didn't think she really gave a snowball's chance in Hades about me. Was it because I'd called her beautiful last night?

"Yeah, she gave Clarisse Hades about talking about you like that, Clovis," Haley informed me. "Now can I go back to sleep?"

"Yeah, sure, Haley," I said, drifting off myself. I dreamed about Lou Ellen. I couldn't get the image of her taking on Clarisse for me out of my sleepy head. I mean, it sounded like a dream. Cool, quiet Lou Ellen going off on queen-of-mean Clarisse for talking bad about me while I was too asleep to defend myself? It was….touching, actually, to think that someone would do something like that for me outside of the world of my dreams.

When I woke up, I realized it was late. I'd slept all day, and even missed dinner. The moon was out again in the sky…the whole camp was probably going to sleep by now. I've slept all day before, but this time I felt bad about it. I wanted to find Lou Ellen, and thank her. But I was still…so….

Tired….

_NO!_ I told myself. _I'm not going to sleep until I thank Lou Ellen. It was really cool, how she stood up for me like that. Plus, she dragged me back here to my cabin when I fell asleep in the middle of talking to her. Nobody else has ever done that. When I fell asleep at dinner last week, I woke up to an empty table, not to somebody telling me I'd fallen asleep outside. Last week, the other campers left me to sleep outside at the table for the whole night. They didn't care, but Lou Ellen did. She made sure I got back to my cabin OK. I should let her know I appreciate it. _

But I was still so tired. I was always tired, no matter how long I slept. Hypnos' kids are just like that, I guess. Either way, I wasn't sure I could stay awake long enough to walk all the way over to Hecate Cabin and find Lou Ellen.

When I turned to stand and try, though, I was surprised to see her standing right there. Lou Ellen was awake, and she was standing right in front of me.

"L-Lou Ellen?" I asked. "What are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be asleep in your own cabin?"

"I don't sleep," Lou Ellen said softly.

"What do you mean, you don't sleep?" I asked, my mind still foggy from my day-long nap. "Everybody sleeps, Lou Ellen. Maybe not as much as me, but we all sleep sometime."

"Not me," Lou Ellen said with a sigh. "I am an insomniac."

"Insomniac?" I repeated. "Like, you can't ever fall asleep?"

"No," Lou Ellen sighed. Her eyes shined, like stars. She looked so sad, and lonely…and still really beautiful, like last night. "Clovis, I haven't slept in a year."

"That's not good for you, Lou Ellen," I said worriedly. It was only our second conversation. Neither of us were really chatty people…me because I'm always asleep, and Lou Ellen because…well, I think it's just her personality. Or at least that's what I thought.

"Neither is sleeping all day, Clovis," retorted Lou Ellen with an airy chuckle. It sounded like dream music…so soft and sad. I didn't want to fall asleep, now. I wanted to keep talking to Lou Ellen, and find out why she seemed so sad.

"Why are you out here, Lou Ellen?" I asked her. "Why aren't you hanging out in your own cabin instead of in the walkway in front of mine?"

"I came to say thank you," Lou Ellen said.

"For what?" I asked. "You're the one who stood up for me and got me back to my own cabin. You did all the nice things last night, not me."

"That's not true," said Lou Ellen. "You helped me put out that minor fire on the border trees. And…you called me beautiful. That was really nice."

"No," I told her. "It was…_true. _You really did look nice. Just like you do now."

Lou Ellen blushed. "You think so?" she asked me with a hint of uncertainty.

"Definitely," I assured her. "The moonlight makes you look all glowy, like an angel or something."

"Are angels even real, Clovis?" Lou Ellen asked.

"I don't know," I told her. "What _is _real is the fact that this might be the longest conversation I've ever had."

"Me, too," Lou Ellen admitted, chuckling musically again. "But, Clovis?"

"Yeah?" I asked, truly trying to stay awake for the first time in a long time. "W-what is it, Lou Ellen?"

"I feel really grateful to you," Lou Ellen said, "because you made me finally stand up to Clarisse. It's not fair for her to judge us, because our parents are minor gods, or because my mom or your half-brother worked with Kronos."

"Do the other campers really give us that much grief about it?" I asked. I had no idea.

"Some of them do," Lou Ellen said with a sigh. "But you're always asleep. You don't notice."

"I'm not asleep now," I said. And I really _wasn't. _The fog of sleep that usually hangs over my brain was _gone. _I didn't even want to dream. I wanted to stay awake with this sleepless girl all night and keep her sadness away. She'd made me wake up, and think. Really think about how little people paid any attention to me. How much nicer Lou Ellen was to me than anybody else.

"Clovis?" Lou Ellen said shyly.

"What, Lou Ellen?" I asked. What did this beautiful girl who had dragged me back to bed, but had never slept in her own, want from me? I truly wanted to know, and for once, that was enough to outweigh my ever-present desire to sleep.

"Would you like to know….why I don't sleep?"

"Sure," I said. "I mean, maybe I can help. My dad's the sleep _god_, so…"

"It's because of your half-brother," Lou Ellen interrupted. "Phobetor. Every time I sleep, he brings me nightmares. About what my mother did. About what Gaea's going to do. Gaea wouldn't have woken up if Kronos hadn't started a war. A war my mother _helped him almost win. _ The gods can't punish Hecate, my mother, for betraying them, but they can punish me. They send me the most horrible visions in my sleep…of Kronos in his sarcophagus, coming back piece by piece with my mother's help. Of demigods dying because of my mom's magic. Of Gaea rising, and everybody saying it's all my fault."

"Oh, Lou Ellen," I said softly. "_You had nothing to do with any of that_..do you understand me? You're not responsible for your mother's mistakes. Just like I'm not responsible for what Morpheus did. We're just kids. And I'm going to talk to my half-brother Phobetor next time I dream and tell him not to listen to those gods who feel betrayed by your mom, and to leave you alone."

"You'd do that for me?" Lou Ellen asked.

"Why not?" I smiled sleepily. "Dreams are supposed to be happy."

"But….I'm just the unimportant daughter of an unimportant goddess," Lou Ellen argued. "Why would the god of nightmares do anything for me?"

"And I'm just the unimportant son of an unimportant god," I laughed. "But I care about you, Lou Ellen. And Phobetor's my family, technically. He wouldn't hurt anyone I truly care about."

"Do you really, truly care about me, Clovis?" Lou Ellen asked.

"Of course I do, Lou Ellen," I said, standing up. "You're the only girl who has made me want to stave off sleep for this long." And I kissed her, and felt really, truly awake for the first time in my life.


End file.
